Basement, making their major label debut with Beside Myself showcase some serious chops with their new record. It’s the type of album that, quite simply, isn’t made anymore. It connects on multiple layers and in multiple ways and really tries, and succeeds, to connect with its audience.

The layers thing with Beside Myself is important. When you listen to the record you’ll think, ‘oh hey, cool, a rock record’. Then, when you really sit down with it for a while, you’ll hear elements of pop punk and grunge. You’ll also catch something new and different with the guitars on the first five listens of the record too. Then, you listen to vocalist Andrew Fisher – and while he’s not the most gifted vocalist I’ve ever heard – his lyrics are outstanding. There’s a lot of self-reflective lyrics here, but there’s a lot more to it than that. What he’s saying is smart and he says it in different ways from song to song. Fisher isn’t the most gifted vocalist out there, he’s perfect with Basement and his voice works well with the band’s guitar style. Still, there’s a lot of lost, and happy in the aether moments on this record, so it’s going to be hard to come back to repeatedly.

Basement’s Beside Myself works and it works in multiple ways. It’s hard to say if this is the type of band that will latch on with the public, or even the public in the alternative genre at this point, but Basement did their part; they did something unique and did it in their own way. That’s a win for them. If you like anything from the 90’s and 2000’s that’s not too far out there but not real mainstream-centric, then you’ll find something here.

Basement, making their major label debut with Beside Myself showcase some serious chops with their new record. It’s the type of album that, quite simply, isn’t made anymore. It connects on multiple layers and in multiple ways and really tries, and succeeds, to connect with its audience.

The layers thing with Beside Myself is important. When you listen to the record you’ll think, ‘oh hey, cool, a rock record’. Then, when you really sit down with it for a while, you’ll hear elements of pop punk and grunge. You’ll also catch something new and different with the guitars on the first five listens of the record too. Then, you listen to vocalist Andrew Fisher – and while he’s not the most gifted vocalist I’ve ever heard – his lyrics are outstanding. There’s a lot of self-reflective lyrics here, but there’s a lot more to it than that. What he’s saying is smart and he says it in different ways from song to song. Fisher isn’t the most gifted vocalist out there, he’s perfect with Basement and his voice works well with the band’s guitar style. Still, there’s a lot of lost, and happy in the aether moments on this record, so it’s going to be hard to come back to repeatedly.

Basement’s Beside Myself works and it works in multiple ways. It’s hard to say if this is the type of band that will latch on with the public, or even the public in the alternative genre at this point, but Basement did their part; they did something unique and did it in their own way. That’s a win for them. If you like anything from the 90’s and 2000’s that’s not too far out there but not real mainstream-centric, then you’ll find something here.